They Got Warnings

Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann at The Washington Post:

There are no provisions, constitutionally, legally or within congressional rules, to enable Congress to meet remotely. This is true even though these challenges are not new; we faced them in the aftermath of 9/11 and with the subsequent anthrax threat that could have left a majority of members of the House and Senate incapacitated. Yet Congress failed to seriously address these vulnerabilities.

It’s not for want of trying. We first worked with then-Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), and then with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), then-chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, in an attempt to focus Congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court on the lack of road maps to make sure our institutions can function in the case of an attack, natural disaster or, as now, health crisis.

We started with columns and op-eds. We testified before Congress. We created a Continuity of Government Commission, co-chaired by Lloyd Cutler, a former two-time White House counsel, and former senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.). We held hearings and issued three reports, on Congress, presidential succession and the judiciary.

The results were, to put it mildly, disappointing. The indifference we first encountered from congressional leaders was soon joined by intense opposition from powerful Republicans in the House. Some responded with simple obduracy. Others passionately believed that the House, which had never had a member serve who was not first elected, should not allow under any circumstances for emergency interim appointments for those killed or incapacitated by a mass attack. They were not moved by the argument that a House with temporary appointments during a catastrophe was better than no House at all.

In the Senate, we were able to secure support from Cornyn and then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), but the constitutional amendment they passed in subcommittee died in the full Judiciary Committee. Other than making provisions for an alternative location if the Capitol were uninhabitable, nothing of significance was done.